


bury yourself alive

by ArsenicInYourPudding



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, gift-fic/prompt fic, kaldur is kind of a mess but comparatively speaking he's pretty good, roy is generally a mess, shadesninde
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 02:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2490944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsenicInYourPudding/pseuds/ArsenicInYourPudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His armor is battered, gauntlets missing, and there’s something hard and deadened about his eyes where they peer out of the shadows, but it’s Kaldur, standing in his shitty apartment and watching him like a wild animal. After a long, tense second, Kaldur murmurs, “Oh, Roy,” like he’s pitying him, and suddenly Roy can’t breathe. </p>
<p>“Stupid,” Roy exhales forcefully, and it sounds like the strange union of a sob, a sigh, and a high, hysterical laugh. “Of course he’s not real. Just a hallucination. Just like all the others.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	bury yourself alive

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fic for Shadesninde: "In the middle of a heroin high (or a withdrawal low) Roy “hallucinates” that Manta!Kaldur appears. What they do - talk, fight, cry, make out, all of the above - is totally up to the writer." 
> 
> Probably not exactly what you were looking for, but I took it and ran with it. Enjoy!
> 
> (Note: Set directly after S2E19 Summit - like, DIRECTLY. Debrief happened like, twenty minutes before this.)

Roy doesn’t know that Kaldur is home. ****

 

He doesn’t know his sister - sister, _sister_ , he rolls the word around in his mouth and in his head and it doesn’t quite feel like the lie he knows it to be anymore because _he_ isn’t who he always said he was either - he doesn’t know that his sister is really alive or that the Light is crippled in a very large way and they have _so much to be celebrating_ , victory and resurrection and homecomings and other things Roy had nothing to do with but should be happy about all the same.

 

He doesn’t know, because he doesn’t _care_ anymore - he doesn’t care about anything but beating this _monster_ with its fangs sunk deep into his stiff shoulders as he paces restlessly across his apartment, trying to shake off that all-consuming awareness of the burner phone with his dealer’s number is sitting _right there_ in the junk drawer under the toaster and if he just _got up_ and dug it out he could make everything _stop_ , one more hit and he’ll be stronger in the morning, better able to fight it off and who knows, maybe he’ll muster up the courage to ask Dinah if she still has the number for the rehab place she was talking to him about - one more hit and he can _do this_ , he swears to himself, it’ll be his last except _every_ hit has always been his last ever since the first one and he knows and hates this about himself and hisses and digs his ragged fingernails into his arms so hard he draws blood.

 

He doesn’t know that the lock on his door is broken from Jade forcing her way in a week ago after he texted her something that probably sounded like a suicide note because it might have been a suicide note if he’d been thinking clearly enough to commit to a course of action at the time. As it stands, she took away the gun he kept for home defense purposes and kissed him like she was dragging him up above the surface of the water with her teeth and stayed with him for a grand total of sixteen hours before a phone call brought her back in off the fire escape with a scared, apologetic look as she shrugged her jacket on and made him swear - _swear to me,_ she hissed, and swore at him in a language he didn’t understand, holding his face inches from hers with one vice grip on his jaw, _swear to me you’ll text me every hour_ on the hour  _or so help me, I will risk my career to bring the full weight of the fucking Justice League down on your ass, you hear me Harper?_

 

So far he has, small texts like _still breathing_ or _it’s really quiet here tonight_ or _the chick who does the weather is dumb as rocks_ or _i miss you, why’d you leave_ , that have tapered off to once or twice a day in the intervening week. She called him twice, the most recent one right before his last hit, and he was already looking for his kit by the time she hung up, murmuring “You’re strong, Roy, you can do this” into his ear across a thousand miles. Jade lies all the time and she’s just flat wrong only slightly less than that, so Roy doesn’t feel too bad about contradicting her as the needle slides into his arm.

 

Roy doesn’t know that it’s been over three weeks since anyone but Jade heard from him - okay, fine, that one’s a lie, and mostly not on purpose. He’s not _avoiding_ anyone, per se, he just doesn’t have the energy or the self-esteem to look someone he loves in the face and say what he knows they want from him, _yes of course I’m okay, all’s quiet on the eastern front_ . He doesn’t think he can do it, and he knows that’s what will get him caught - silence, he can play off later as being busy, but getting caught in an ill-executed lie would be the fastest way to tip his hand. And he’s sick, _so sick_ , of disappointing people.

 

The front door groans when it opens, and Roy freezes in his borderline-hypervigilant state, fingers still dug into his own biceps. His brain cycles through its _fight, flight, freeze_ options in record time, and Roy’s in the middle of diving for the knife he keeps tucked between the couch cushions when his unannounced visitor steps into the dim light from the floor lamp behind the coffee table.

 

The knife handle is clenched tight in his palm when his visitor takes a careful step to a more visible location. His armor is battered, gauntlets missing, and there’s something hard and deadened about his eyes where they peer out of the shadows, but it’s _Kaldur_ , standing in his shitty apartment and watching him like a wild animal. After a long, tense second, Kaldur murmurs, “Oh, Roy,” like he’s _pitying_ him, and suddenly Roy can’t breathe.

 

“Stupid,” Roy exhales forcefully, and it sounds like the strange union of a sob, a sigh, and a high, hysterical laugh. He drops the knife and it narrowly avoids landing on his bare foot but he doesn’t care, hardly even notices, raking a trembling hand through his hair and beginning to pace again. “Of course he’s not real. Just a hallucination. Just like all the others.”

 

In his peripheral vision, Kaldur goes from concerned to confused as he hears Roy muttering to himself. “Roy,” he tries again, and Roy ignores him, turning on his heel and pacing back across the living room. His hands do that frustrated twitching thing at his sides that he’s _always_ done when Roy was making an ass of himself, and that shouldn’t be endearing but it is and Roy _misses Kaldur_ in such a big, gaping way that he chokes on it, his eyes watering.

 

And then Kaldur’s voice is closer when he says, “Roy, please look at me.” Roy shakes his head violently and gasps for air for a second, pressing the heels of his sweaty palms to his eye sockets. The mixture of sweat and tears burns, but he’s grateful for the reality of tactile sensation to keep him grounded, especially if he’s hallucinating. Of all the symptoms to have to deal with tonight, it _had_ to be this one in particular.

 

“If I touch you right now, are you going to hit me,” Kaldur asks, and there’s some attempt at his usual dry-as-the-Bialyan-desert humor in the words but he’s quiet and he’s _asking,_ seeking an actual answer from Roy’s frazzled state, and Roy nods and then shakes his head and whimpers something that might be _I don’t know_ but probably sounds more like _please, anything_.

 

The hand that curls around the base of his neck is solid and gentle and his skin is cool and calloused just like Roy remembers, and Roy goes stone still and his eyes fall closed and he inhales a ragged, broken-glass breath through clenched teeth. Kaldur’s other hand comes up slowly, fingertips brushing against his cheekbone, like he’s testing the limits of what he’s allowed to do all over again.

 

“You’re not real, you can’t be real,” Roy rasps, practically nuzzling into the palm against his cheek. He can feel his own tears sliding down the sides of Kaldur’s fingers and any other time, at any other point in all the years they’ve known each other he’d be so violently opposed to the idea of crying in front of anyone let alone _this man_ , this stupid fish boy who left him alone for a supervillain father and a dead almost-girlfriend, and Roy wants to yell and punch him and make Kaldur hold him like he’s plenty willing to just let Roy crawl inside his skin and stay there until he feels better.

 

Kaldur’s hand on Roy’s neck slides up and around until both of his palms are sitting against Roy’s jaw like he’s made of glass. “I’m real,” he assures with the patient sort of heartbreak that he’s always been good at, “Roy, I’m real, and I am _right here_.”

 

And those words, mysteriously, appear to be the secret password that Roy didn’t even realize he’d set on his own downward spiral, because the last crumbling ruins of walls go sliding down like an avalanche off a particularly steep mountainside and Roy opens his eyes again and finds Kaldur looking at him with a heavy, unfamiliar sadness over top of something else that’s gentle and vibrant and _living_ that’s always been there when Kaldur looks at him, and Roy chokes on the tight, overpacked feeling in his chest and leans forward.

 

“You’re dehydrated,” Kaldur notes against Roy’s chapped lips once they part again, and some part of him remembers telling Kaldur that at some point, _you’re dehydrated_ is going to become our version of _as you wish_ if things keep going the way they’re going, and then Kaldur confessed he’d never actually seen the Princess Bride and Roy had sat up in bed, naked and laughingly outraged, and swatted him with a pillow before setting off to find his copy of the dvd because there are so many wrongs in his life that Roy can’t do shit about but he can fix _this_ one with a bowl of popcorn and a remote and Kaldur sprawled out under his sheet while the movie plays.

 

“A while ago I was high, and before that I think I was probably trying to shoot myself, so,” Roy says in a fit of shaky, ill-advised honesty, but he still doesn’t believe Kaldur’s really here so he doesn’t feel too guilty about anything. “I’m just a perfect bundle of responsible adult choices for you to criticize right now.”

 

“Oh, Roy,” Kaldur breathes again, his voice tight and heavy with something Roy can’t quite make out, and his fingertips wipe away a film of sweat and tears from Roy’s face. “Withdrawal?”

 

And sometimes, Roy actually manages to forget like he always wants to that Kaldur’s seen him through two of these already and this isn’t new territory for either of them, because the calm, straightforward tone, like Kaldur’s already making checklists and cataloging his surroundings in his head, takes Roy by surprise. He nods, briefly feeling ashamed of himself.

 

Kaldur mutters something unintelligible, likely in Atlantean, and kisses him again briefly before stepping away and bending to pick up the knife Roy’s lucky he hadn’t cut his foot on. Roy stands there dumbly, wondering at the fact that every time he’s in this stupid situation, standing in a dark room falling to pieces with every move he makes, it always comes with people he loves saying words he doesn’t understand, and is that a commentary on his turn-ons or just his people skills in general? Roy doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to say for sure.

 

Kaldur lays the knife on the coffee table and straightens, the joints of his armor creaking. “Did they not let you change or something,” Roy blurts, sounding stupid to his own ears, and Kaldur glances down self-consciously and shrugs.

 

“Black Canary gave me your new address. I was...eager, to see you for myself. I heard you hadn’t been well, following my departure.” Nice to see Kaldur hadn’t lost his irritating habits toward understatement.

 

“I’m sorry,” and once Roy starts apologizing he can’t seem to stop. “I’m so sorry Kal, I know I said I’d stay clean this time but I’m fuckin-- I’m fucking _weak_ , I couldn’t do it on my own and you left and Jade left and Ollie and Dinah and Artemis-- Artemis _died_ , she’s dead Kal and I don’t know _how_ but it’s my fault, it’s all my fucking fault, and everyone’s gone and I fucked up _so bad_ Kal--”

 

Kaldur makes some sort of gentle shushing sound and strokes his hands over the planes of Roy’s face. “It isn’t your fault,” he insists gently, pulling Roy’s head forward a little to lean against his own. “It is not your fault, Roy, listen to me. You _cannot_ take the blame for any of this.”

 

Roy chokes on his own spit and clings to the edges of Kaldur’s armor, and something jagged and broken cuts his palm but Roy’s too busy feeling penitent for his many and varied sins to care about the way his sweat stings in the wound. But Kaldur pulls away after a moment and reaches for his hands and finds blood in Roy’s palm, and makes a horrified, exasperated little noise as he holds Roy’s palm up for inspection in the dim light.

 

“Come here,” he says quietly, and leads Roy by the wrist to the bathroom. He turns the sink on full blast and guides Roy’s palm under the water before shuffling out into the hall and beginning what Roy thinks is an enormously overcomplicated task of removing his armor. Roy stands there and watches him, water running ceaselessly over his palm, until Kaldur is standing before him in a pair of leggings and nothing else, a pile of dented metal and plastic heaped just around the corner into the living room. He comes back and maneuvers Roy around so he can open the medicine cabinet without smacking him in the face, picking out a bottle of antiseptic. “How long has it been,” Kaldur says, a quiet, easy brand of neutral as he tips a little out of the bottle onto Roy’s palm. It fizzes a little on his skin and drips off when Roy tips his hand to the side.

 

“I’m not sure,” Roy confesses, because he isn’t - he doesn’t know what time it is, just that it’s late because the strip club at the end of the alley below his window has been shining a bright neon glow up into his apartment for a few hours now, and Jade hasn’t tried to call him again so either she’s too busy or it hasn’t been long enough for her to worry. “It’s just starting.”

 

“Nausea?”

 

Roy shakes his head and watches Kaldur grab a dingy hand towel from the pile on the counter and wrap it around his hand. “Everything hurts like one of Dinah’s ‘you did something stupid and I want you to feel bad’ training sessions, but that’s the worst of it.”

 

“Anxiety,” Kaldur says, and it isn’t a question. Roy nods anyway, and Kaldur sighs. He presses his hands against the sides of Roy’s face and pulls his head down a little as he rolls up on the balls of his feet, kissing his forehead. Roy considers being touched by the gesture until Kaldur rocks back down to his heels and frowns even more deeply, muttering “No wonder you’re dehydrated,” and Roy realizes with no small amount of disappointment that he was just checking for a temperature.

 

Kaldur vanishes toward the kitchen, leaving Roy propped up against the bathroom door frame. In the sudden solitude, Roy scrubs a hand over his face and starts to doubt the reality of Kaldur’s presence. It wouldn’t be the first time a hallucination has cropped up out of some deep-seeded survival instinct - his brain knows he won’t take care of it on his own, so it has to trick him into doing it for someone else. Usually it’s Dinah, although once a vision of Ollie bundling him into bed like a little kid had him calling home in tears as soon as he was conscious again. _What if I really am alone, and I’m just losing it_ , he thinks, gripped by needy panic just as Kaldur comes padding back down the hall, holding an old Star City Rockets water bottle in one hand and a package of saltines in the other.

 

Roy reaches for him, half-blindly flailing in his direction with his good hand until Kaldur shuffles the carabiner clip on the water bottle to his other hand and tucks his fingers tight around Roy’s. “Shh, I’m here,” he assures, letting go of Roy’s hand to fold his arm around his waist and pull him in against his shoulder. “I’m here, it’s alright.”

 

“Don’t leave, please don’t leave,” Roy mutters urgently against the side of Kaldur’s neck. “I can’t be alone, I don’t-- I don’t know what’ll--”

 

Kaldur presses one wide palm flat against Roy’s back and murmurs something Atlantean that Roy’s always translated roughly as _calm the fuck down before you hurt yourself,_ but it must mean something far gentler than that because Kaldur breathes it like he does when he means _I love you_ and suddenly Roy _needs_ to know what it means in English.

 

“It means everything will be alright,” Kaldur explains, guiding Roy back into his bedroom. “‘All will be well, because I am here’.”

 

“Please don’t leave again, Kal,” Roy begs, he’s _begging_ , its humiliating and Roy’s at his lowest point and everyone’s gone and Kaldur _still_ manages to be here somehow, “I know I’m gonna wake up and you won’t be here because you aren’t real but _please_ don’t leave me.”

 

Kaldur settles him on the mattress in the corner and sits down next to him, twisting the top of the water bottle off thoughtfully. “There is nothing I can say to convince you,” he speculates quietly, handing Roy the open water bottle. “I suppose my presence will have to be enough for now.”

 

Roy manages to swallow a few times without choking before handing the water bottle back and leaning into Kaldur’s shoulder. There are fresh scars in the dim light that Roy won’t ask about, but he lays one track mark-laden forearm across Kaldur’s lap and traces one just above his opposite hip wordlessly. Suddenly the silence is terrifying, and Roy opens his mouth. “I’m a terrible dad,” comes out in a breathless, sad laugh, and Kaldur looks down at him but says nothing, waiting for him to elaborate. “I bet you didn’t even know I _was_ a dad, did you? Lian came after you left. It was like reincarnation, I guess, except you weren’t dead so not really. Jade has her most of the time, or her mom does. I haven’t been clean in... In a while, okay, I suck and I’m never gonna be the parent she needs but she’s, _god_ Kal, she’s gorgeous, she’s the greatest kid you’ve ever met and I love her more than I’ve loved anything ever in my _life_ , and I’m a terrible dad and I’m a terrible friend and I’m a terrible _person_ , Kal, look at me, I’m _awful,_ I’m so sorry.”

 

Kaldur jumps in before he can say anything else. “I know you feel that way right now,” he says gently, wrapping one arm around Roy’s back, and Roy _almost_ laughs because he remembers Canary’s non-violent communication seminar when they were teenagers and doodling tiny, obscene things on the edges of Kaldur’s notebook just to get that flat, _you’re an idiot_ look out of the corner of Kaldur’s eyes. “And I know why you feel that way, but _I_ know that you aren’t seeing the situation clearly.”

 

“What’s to see,” Roy says, hopeless. He knows what Kaldur is going to say - _that’s not true, you’re great_ , and he knows a lie when he hears one.

 

“A man who went to the ends of the earth to save a boy he’d never even met,” Kaldur offers quietly. “A man who is trying to fix a mistake on his own rather than let his pattern of behavior remain unaltered until someone else calls him on it. A man who has spent his life - his _whole life_ \- standing between his fellow human beings and danger.” Kaldur presses his lips to Roy’s temple and murmurs, “ _That_ is what I see, and that is the man I came back for.”

 

“I started using again,” Roy says, and he might be circling back onto old arguments but it’s all he has because he doesn’t _deserve_ these things Kaldur is saying and he doesn’t mind making a liar out of Jade but he _hates_ making one out of Kaldur and it’s not fair, why does he insist on seeing good where there isn’t any, not anymore?

 

“And you are trying to stop,” Kaldur counters easily, and Roy sits up and shoves him weakly. “I am not leaving,” he insists. “Push all you like, I will not let you fail here by yourself.” His eyes go tight and sad at the corners and he says, mostly to himself, “I owe you this.”

 

And ordinarily, that’s something Roy would maybe try to address, and it’d probably devolve into an argument about obligation versus love and all the many ways they’ve failed each other over the years, but Roy’s too tired to deal with someone else’s issues right now and he’s still not entirely convinced that Kaldur will still be there in the morning, so he wraps his arms around Kaldur’s chest and seeks what comfort he can and doesn’t say anything when Kaldur rests his palm in his hair and whispers something Atlantean in his ear.

 

Despite all the things Roy doesn’t know, he _does_ know that sometimes, it’s best to just take what you can get and stop asking hard questions for a while.

 


End file.
